Conclusions
25. In the two years since the Baht was floated and Thailand embarked on the IMF
program, one can say that the country is no longer bankrupt. The initially envisaged
adjustment scenario was completely wrong, and in actual fact the way the country has
recovered from its bankruptcy position was very much through the standard depreciation cum
depression scenario. Output is slowly recovering. However, much remains to be done,
17 This excludes borrowing from the IMF package. 9
particularly on debt restructuring to solve the huge NPL problem. Too much stress was given
in the program to quickly bring about an upgrading of the prudential standards in the financial
sector. This had led to a severe malfunctioning of the financial sector, and led to a vicious
cycle of recession, increasing NPL, liquidity crunch on the real sector, and further recession.
Increasing prudential standards is a commendable objective, since bad lending practices by
financial institutions led to the asset bubble that finally burst. However, to quickly increase
prudential standards at a time when the country needs to tackle its bankruptcy position
imposes large additional costs. Better prudential standards may help to lower the risks of
having the kind of boom bust cycle that Thailand went through, but they certainly would not
have prevented it. Foreign financial institutions that are meant to have good prudential
standards are equally to blame for the crisis. They lent huge amounts of money to Thailand
for projects that have been proven not to be viable. The point is that when the economy is
booming, as was the situation in Thailand before the bubble finally burst, financial sector and
real sector balance sheets appear healthy. NPL are low and banks have no problem in
meeting the required prudential standards. Better prudential standards by themselves may
help to give some early warning signs, but a whole host of other information need to be
developed for effective early warning. Before the crisis, the information system to guide
private investment decision making was very poor. The public sector paid little attention to
the development and dissemination of necessary information, and the private sector simply
invested in private information which gives a very partial picture of the overall situation.
Things are improving. Thailand finally has a quarterly GDP series with about a two quarter
lag.18 There was none before the crisis. The Bank of Thailand has systematised the system
of information releases and is now very transparent in releasing the key data.19 Information
systems in other areas are being developed, but much still remains to be done.